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Here I go

I’ve been reluctant to start a blog for some time. I expand on this a bit in my first post on, ironically, my other blog, started almost exclusively for promotion of my wedding invitation business. In essence, my aversion to my own personal blog was the self-indulgent nature of the beast, and the vanity in thinking anyone would care to take me up on an invitation to enter my private world. But, since I’ve already gotten into the “why nots,” instead, I will focused this first post on the “why’s.”

Simply, I have always had an interest in writing. As a little girl, I always dreamed of being a writer. I would try and take what I knew (a sheltered, middle-class, Midwestern, more-than-fortunate life) and use my imagination to weave it into a story that might be more interesting to the masses. I would begin and subsequently quit writing books with outrageous storylines that seemed plausible to my pre-teen self, but never held my interest long enough to finish writing a suitable “chapter book.” Essentially, the main problem with this form of writing was that it wasn’t real. No matter how much imagination I consider myself possessing, I could never get past that first rule of writing: “Write what you know.”

As I grew older, I found that I had more interest in shorter pieces of writing, and enjoyed writing personal essays for English class and, eventually, human interest pieces for the school newspaper. I loved telling other peoples’ stories as well as my own, and instead of twisting the truth to make it more interesting, I found that I could effectively spin stories in readable ways just by taking a different perspective on the existing facts.

My college career brought me, appropriately, to Journalism School, and I strangely veered away from the textual telling of a story to the visual one. I found myself enjoying my graphics classes over my writing classes, and concentrated more on the Graphics major than the Magazine Writing one (which, looking back on it, probably had much more to do with the difference in instructors in the two programs rather than the actual mediums and coursework). Although I still graduated with both majors, I entered the real world as a Graphic Designer, and have defined myself as such ever since.

So now, although every employer I’ve ever had has quickly taken advantage of my history with crafting words, I spend most of my creative juices pairing appropriate fonts with visuals, illustrating images, performing photo research and creating eye-catching color combinations. While I still find myself thinking in a writer’s tone – such as taking in a pleasant scene or moment in time by considering how I would describe it to a reader – my dream of one day becoming a writer has been pushed to the back shelf.

But it’s still there. And while I may never write that Great American Novel (I still don’t think I have the ability to craft a readable book out of my limited life experiences), I do enjoy putting words together to share individual moments and thoughts. With the physical distance between me and many of my family and friends, as well as the busy and exhaustive days that plague us all, it is unavoidable that I miss the chance to touch base with many of my loved ones nearly as often as I’d like. While I’m a very admittedly open book to those that interact with me on a regular basis, there are plenty of my dearest confidantes with whom I don’t get the chance to share my triumphs and struggles, my daily blessings, memories made and small life moments.

Also, I find myself increasingly voyeuristic in the amount of blogs I read – daily tales from good friends, complete strangers, and everyone in between. While I don’t consider my daily life any more exciting than those that I peer into via their blogs (on the contrary, actually), I do feel as if some kind of reciprocity is warranted for my time spent reading theirs. Why shouldn’t my voice also make its way into the fold?

Whether it’s self-reflection, exercising a writing muscle that has been too long unused, or just a way of sharing my daily ins and outs with the couple people who may be interested (hi Mom and Dad!), we’ll see where this blog goes.

I can’t promise I will be very consistent with my posting schedule or content (my business blog may already be a red flag at my neglect of this kind of thing…), but any feedback you want to give is welcome!